With the heart of the flu and fire seasons fast approaching, staff members at 211 San Diego, the county's information hotline, are bracing for a busy fall.

When a crisis happens, “that's when we go into disaster mode,” said Lourdes Jimenez, the nonprofit's director of external affairs.

The information service normally handles calls from people looking for basic human services such as food, housing, employment and health care. Specialists at the Serra Mesa office have a list of 5,000 services to which they can refer callers.

When an emergency happens, 211 San Diego becomes a hub for information such as road closures, shelter locations, evacuation sites and recovery assistance.

“As we have seen with disasters we've had in San Diego and other parts, 211 is absolutely indispensable when dealing with non-emergency information during a disaster,” said county Supervisor Greg Cox, who chairs the nonprofit's leadership committee.

San Diego's 211 system was launched in 2005 and was previously known as INFO LINE, a 1-800 telephone service established by the United Way in the late 1980s.

“The goal was to have one simple number,” Cox said.

Twenty-one counties in California now have the nationally recognized dialing code.

During the 2007 wildfires, the public was directed to call 211 for fire-related information, and the San Diego office handled more than 110,000 calls.

The information and referral agency, which has a $2.7 million annual budget and receives public and private funding, continues to work with the county's Office of Emergency Services and the Health and Human Services Agency on fire and flu issues, respectively.

So far this year, it has held five safety workshops in fire-prone areas of the county and responded to more than 3,000 calls from the public about swine flu.

Even without a crisis, the 19 information and referral specialists working at the call center just north of Qualcomm Stadium have been busy. Most speak Spanish, and the agency uses a service that can translate 150 languages.

The agency is on pace to handle more than 200,000 calls this fiscal year, up from about 170,000 last fiscal year, said its chief executive director, John Ohanian.

“The volume is up due to the economy and more people knowing about our services,” Ohanian said.

Trudy Thekla recently helped a homeless woman and her 8-year-old child find a shelter in North County.

Gabriel Kendall helped a mentally ill San Diego man who called looking for counseling services.

“They're all delicate calls,” Kendall said. “It's not as if they're calling 211 during the easiest times in their lives. They're calling because they're facing difficulties and challenges.”